Authorities warn of escalating fraud cases

ECA Review/File

Rising fraud cases raise concerns as RCMP reports show alarming trends in the region. According to RCMP quarterly reports, there has been an increasing amount of fraud.

Sgt. John Pike informed Castor council during the June 12 regular council meeting that they have observed a rising number of fraud cases. This trend has also been observed by other RCMP detachments.

“Our guys have had a large amount of fraud lately, like a lot of frauds and unfortunately, they take up a lot of time,” Pike said. “What we normally do is we take that file, investigate and try to figure out where the money went.”

The issue that the Coronation RCMP is having when dealing with fraud crimes is that once the money is out of the province, there is not much they can do to get the offender charged, as many of the offenders are committing these acts from outside Alberta.

Pike explained that flying the offender to Alberta would take too many resources to try them in court. Instead, they are sending the files to other detachments in Ontario and Quebec to get them charged through the province they reside in.

The other issue is that the RCMP has problems tracking the money once it has left the country, and there are gift card scams that make the money untraceable.

Sgt. Rob Welsman from the Hanna RCMP addressed the council during the June 13 Hanna council meeting, discussing their quarterly report and highlighting recent scams that have occurred in the area.

Hanna RCMP has been focusing on fraud prevention. They are giving presentations on fraud prevention, mainly to seniors, and working with local businesses to try and prevent fraud.

“One of the recent schemes that we have seen is the purchase of gift cards in order to transact money across the internet and over the phone,” Welsman said.

According to RCMP officers, the best way of dealing with fraud is to prevent it before it happens.

“If it seems too good to be true, it probably is,” said Stettler detachment commander S/Sgt. Jon England.

Some recent frauds are gift card scams where someone asks for or says they will refund you in gift cards or if someone requests to be paid or refund you in bitcoin.

The grandparent scam occurred last year when someone called wanting to bail their grandson out of jail, and after investigation, it was found out the grandson was not in jail.

There are many more different types of fraud. England said that if you think you are being scammed, research what is happening and call your local detachment. You can also look at the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre online.

Stettler RCMP Cst. Dragan Vojnovic recommends making sure that if you notice any suspicious bank activity, you freeze your bank account, make sure you aren’t clicking on links from unknown sites or senders and ensure that you are sending e-transfers to the correct person.

“Some things that everyone can consider, not just elderly individuals, is that frauds occur on a daily basis and they have become more and more realistic,” said Vojnovic.

Article published by East Central Alberta Review